Goliath Crown of Garim Darnore

Item Description

This heavy, gold and platinum plated crown is exquisitely crafted and displays mesmerizing etchings and carvings with impossible weaving that seem out of this world. Weighing in at a substantial ten pounds due to the heavy metals used in its construction, most find it exceptionally difficult to wear. The crown consists of a circlet of platinum with interwoven threads of gold. The carvings and etchings in the platinum are so fine and exquisite that no craftsman has been able to duplicate them. Four arms, made of the finest chains of mithril, adamantine, gold, and platinum impossibly interwoven to appear as solid metal to all but the closest of observations, arc up off the circlet and taper towards the center of the crown. The arms end in a tiny mass of leaves that appear to be an exceptionally carved ball of precious metal, when in fact, the leaves do not touch each other: an impossible puzzle of precious metals whose secret of craftsmanship has long since passed from this world.

Legend

Garim Darnore in the dwarven translates roughly to Burning Point of the Bear-King. This suited the dwarven king, Garim, quite well. With a fierce propensity towards combat and ale that amazed even the hardiest of dwarves, Garim Darnore was a beast of a dwarf, standing at six and a half feet tall, with wider shoulders than a grizzly bear and a husky beard that was rumored to be able stop a swinging sword. Garim was not so fat as he was muscle and bone, but he was still a pretty fat dwarf. Ruling over a massive dwarven hall, with many winding passageways and stairs, Garim hated walking and his laziness was legendary.

One mid-summer day, in an ale house adjoining a watermill among the terraced farm land of Garim Darnore's kingdom. Two members the dwarven teamsters guild walk in, their respective day glow pink and blue beards denoting their disdain for dwavern nobility, their wrinkled skin telling of their day light occupation and the layer of dust about their person's putting emphasis of their day's labors. They buy two house steins and then lean against a wall-mounted keg of Groemdeggers Stout, so recently was the keg brought up from the ice pit that it was still sweating.

Pink: drink "Ugh, this should be warm, can't taste a thing it is so cold."

Blue: drink "We are lucky the king left us anything, how many kegs did we haul there today, 53?"

Pink "54, we put that one in his privy" drink

Blue "Indeed, I am not saying the king is lazy, but when you can't be bothered to leave the privy to get a brew or leave the brew cellar to visit the privy it might be time to confront your inner hobbit and give it a good beating" drink

Pink: "Yeah I ain't saying he is lazy, but how long did it take them to mount the keg above his throne? It is not like he even fills his own cup, he has clans of stuck up high born nobles, yanking each others beards to try and fill it." drink

Blue: "Indeed, I am not going to call the King Lazy, but I heard when he had a cold, he had the steward open the gate so the wind could blow his nose." drink

Pink: "Yeah, I ain't saying Garim is lazy, but he was the first to us a throwing ax…to chop wood" drink

Blue: “Deed, Deed, and I couldn’t tell you that our king Garim trained his dogs to fetch ducks. . . from the table.” drink

Pink: “Yeah, and Garim only accepts challenges for single combat” drink drink

Blue: “Uh?” drink drink

Pink: “Cause he is too lazy to fight more than once…bah…heed it not” drink drink

Blue: “No No ,true indeed, Do you know why Garim always seizes the high ground before a battle?” drink

Blue: “Indeed-deed, the poet Dwohn Dwunn wrote ‘every dwarf is an island’, but Garim is the only one they put on a map” drink drink drink

Pink: “Yeah, Darnore Keep wasn’t called the Hall of the Mountain King before Garim got took throne” drink drink DRINK

Blue: “Deed, indeed and where did he take it, when was the last time any one saw throne any how?” drink drink DRINK

Pink: “Last full MOON me guess” DRINKS

Separated from the main ale-cellar by a curtain, three gentlemen of agenda sat having recently shared a silent lament for the earnings that king's recent judgements had condemned. The notorious mercenary sage and bard Anoikis shelved his disappointment and listened to the banter of the two teamsters. Reaching into the trio's map case, Anoikis pulled out a parchment detailing a newly rejected line of succession for the common held estates bordering the Ice Tome glacier. He laid the parchment face down on the lager splashed table and plucked a piece of charcoal from a cold braiser nestled between his chair and the wall. In few minutes he passed his sketches detailing a device for harnessing fey lines for to specific task to the to the two low born but wealthy dwarvern artificers who employed him. “Do you think a gift with these attributes might warm the king to your families’ proposals.” The two crafty dwarves grinned and began brainstorming the tools and materials that such a magnificent gift would require.
As a "gift of tribute and a show of skill and craftsmanship", the finest dwarven smiths and artificers forged the Goliath Crown for the Bear King. At first, the king was slightly upset by the cumbersome weight of the crown, but was thrilled when the magic of it was explained. After a few uses, the king's heart quickly softened to the proposal of the artificers as thanks for the luxurious gift.

The king loved the crown dearly, but due to its magic, it was easy to steal. An evil human prince, disguised as a traveling jester, stole the crown from the king's head during a trick of magic. The king had only a second to throw his dinner fork at the prince before he used the crown's power to escape.

The king has never seen his beloved crown since, despite the exorbitant reward for it's safe return. To the best of anyone's knowledge, the crown is currently in the possession of an evil prince of unknown origin who bears the three pronged scar of a dinner fork in his left cheek.

Magic Properties

The wearer can enter any normal rock and teleport to a rock of the same kind, regardless of the distance separating the two. The destination rock need not be familiar to the wearer. If the wearer is uncertain of the location of a particular kind of destination rock, he need merely designate direction and distance and the crown moves him as close as possible to the desired location. Both the rock that the wearer enters and the destination rock must be large enough for the wearer and any passengers to fit into.

By holding hands, the wearer can bring along up to six additional willing creatures. All creatures to be transported by the spell must be in physical contact with one another.

If ever a goblin or elf wears the crown and attempts to teleport this way, the crown deposits their body into the stone instead of open space. This kills the unfortunate creature while the crown appears in the available safe space. A goblin or elf can only teleport safely when someone else is wearing the crown.

Due to an oddity in the crown's makeup, its weight multiplies underwater. The experience was explained as equivalent to hauling around a ship's anchor.

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I welcome any thoughts, additions or plot hooks that you can contribute. I am totally fine with creating interesting twists on otherwise mediocre magic, but I would love to hear what others hear have to contribute rather than hear mediocre feedback.

Please do not be discouraged. I fully welcome any constructive criticism that you have, and I don't care about the rating of any of my posts. I'm just looking for a constructive outlet.

You seem be trying for a flippant and comical tone with the origin story here, but I feel like you haven’t really committed to it. I suggest changing the open line to directly address the character of Garim Darnore (instead of the side long view you have now) and also use that line to set the tone. For example a bawdy take on that might be

“King Garim Darnore was so fat that when he invoked the royal We, you were forced to consider whether or not he was hiding the entire royal line under robes. Certainly a man of his stature took up both side of family tree.”

Please if you go that route, find better route than those stale jokes.

Or try in pull in both sides of his character in that opening. Consider something like “Before becoming King, Garim Darnoe had strangled Bawlor the great river demon with his bear hands, bested the Helk the Hatceht in single combat, led the conquest of Island of Crueloar, alone saved the great Red Kraken from the God’s Wrath tsunami by dragging it 3 miles back to the ocean and single handedly resisted a 2 month goblin siege of his family diamond mine with only a dagger, a loaf of meat bread and a cask of whiskey. When he ascended to his throne he swore that he would tax sparingly, encourage freedom, rule without aggression and only leave his throne when his realm was threatened. Nobody had expected him to embody such a literal interpretation of that last point.”

The point of your story is that crown was designed not for military uses or romantic rendezvous, but to help a fat lazy rich guy get around his enormous house. I get that and it is funny. Play to the funny.

Also the powers section is kind of vague. Do you actually meld into the stone and step out? Can you hang out there for awhile if you want? Do the stones have to be connected?

Love It!! I really was going for an item to help a fat lazy guy get around, and I love the ideas you've got to back it up. I feel that I could do a great deal better with my posts, but I usually only jump on to spew out and flesh out an idea brewing in my head. I look forward to having time to collaborate more before posting my subs. You are right, in this post, I should play to the funny.

You actually meld into the stone. You can hang out in the stone for as long as you care to, but if the stone is broken while you are in it, well...imagine being a statue and getting broken in half. The stones do not need to be connected in any way. You could carry around a huge slab of stone on a wooden cart for quick transport to wherever and back if you wanted to. You can't stick your hand through one stone and out of another without completely walking into the stone; you (and everyone with you) have to completely meld into one stone before you can teleport to and exit the destination stone.

The power of the crown is what it is. Nothing to linger on, but everything else in this sub is fun and clever.

I liked the crown's physical description for starters. It builds to a nice crescendo of "impossible puzzle of precious metals".

Pink and Blue are great, laughed out loud a few times, as I read it.

I actually find myself liking and wanting to use the mini-setting you created around this crown! The lazy, fat bear-king, blue and pink, showing off their distaste for nobility with garish-colored beards, the dwarven poet dwohn dwunn (best line, that one!), dwarven teamster guilds, the "notorious mercenary sage and bard" Anoikis, (the "Meddler" some dwarves call him, others, the "Facilitator") and groemdegger stout! (that'll be 2 silver pieces, i'll pm you my address)